Lamictal & Effexor

[Guest luli2545]

I've just starte

[clumsycrawling]

Hi Luli. I'm on 525 mg Effexor and 300 mg Lamictal, plus 10 mg dextroamphetamine and 2000 mg fish oil. Lamictal has been a lifesaver for me. It helped Effexor become useful again (after a one-month vacation from pooped out Effexor) and has really leveled me out. Where I had been having about one no-depression or mild-depression day out of every ten days, I'm now having about 7 no-depression days out of 10. And hopefully climbing so I can go into remission for MDD, recurrent, treatment-resistant.

I think the fish oil is also part of it. Maybe you can ask your pdoc about it.

clumsycrawling.

[NARS]

Check aidsmeds.com for drug interactions.  Check out the pinned post by Air Marshall at the top of this forum for basic info on how to figure this stuff out. 

Depakote pretty much doubles the amount of lamictal in your system, so your pdoc's titration sounds good.  And your side effects (some irritability, headache, etc) sound very typical.  Some people have intolerable mania, most just a little high after starting and after dosage increases. 

My side effects only lasted 2 or 3 days after a dose increase.  Try to hang in there; if lamictal works for you it will be amazing.

My bottoms disappeared by the time I got to 50 daily.  Which for you is equivalent to 100 daily.  When you go off depakote, you'll experience a drop in lamictal, so if I were you I'd ask my pdoc to be sure to coordinate dropping the depakote right after (within a few days before) a lamictal increase so you don't get a dip.

And I took Tylenol or Advil when I got lamictal headaches and had no problem.  You're not on a particularly high dose of depakote, so sure, check with your pdoc, but I wouldn't worry about it.  If you need it, take an antacid with the tylenol or advil to keep your stomach happy.

Just about every thread about lamictal on this forum includes a discussion of someone's side effects.  Don't get panicked by the side effects described.  We're all different, and we tend to post more when we're having trouble with meds than if we're doing well.  So those of us who're loving lamictal aren't complaining much. B)